Cold Case Handbook

$32.95

SKU:
9315701BE01
ISBN:
978-1-60885-462-2

$24.95

SKU:
9315701EP01
ISBN:
978-1-60885-461-5

CURRENT EDITION	1st
VOLUMES	1
PAGES	258
AUTHOR	Joseph L. Giacalone
LAST RELEASE DATE	May 8, 2023
SAMPLE BOOK	Download Sample

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This in-depth look at solving cold cases serves as an excellent training resource that is both captivating and instructive. The author, Joseph Giacalone, focuses on how to approach these cases in a logical, scientific and organized manner. The foreword for this publication was provided by Dr. Henry Lee.

The Cold Case Handbook is the first of its kind that includes not just investigative steps for law enforcement to help close cold cases, but also information for the victims’ families, and the true crime community. The Handbook covers the Cold Case Trilogy: Homicides, Sexual Assaults, and Missing Persons. It also includes a breakdown of the two new federal laws passed in 2022 – The Homicide Victims’ Families’ Rights Act and the Help Find the Missing Act – both will be crucial in moving these cases forward.

Joseph Giacalone, retired NYPD Sergeant SDS and former Commanding Officer of the Bronx Cold Case Squad, gives you the opportunity to benefit from his experiences in supervising a cold case squad with some of the best detectives in the world. Inside the publication you’ll find investigative techniques, strategies, and the latest in forensic advancements, which can help solve America’s toughest cases. Here are some of the topics covered:

• How to Start a Cold Case Squad
• Choosing Personnel for the Cold Case Squad
• Why Cases Go Cold and How to Prevent it
• Choosing cases for reinvestigation
• Researching a cold case
• Steps to take in the reinvestigation and which pitfalls to avoid
• The Role of the True Crime Community in Helping Solve Cold Cases
• Suggestions for the Victims’ families as well as available resources
• Cold Case Symposiums and Cold Case Institutes and their role in the process

The Cold Case Handbook is broken into two sections:
Section I: The Administrative Tasks of Cold Case Investigation
Section II: The Reinvestigation of a Cold Case

The Cold Case Handbook is designed to be a start to finish guide through the Cold Case process: From finding the right case to presenting it to the district attorney and everything in between.

Table of Contents

About the Author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
Focus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Preface Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Book Organization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Structure and Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Introduction to Cold Cases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv
Chapter 1 — The Homicide Victims’ Families’ Rights
Act of 2021. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Background on the Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
What Police Executives and Investigators Need to
Know About the New Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Breakdown of the New Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Which Cold Cases Does the Law Affect?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
How Will the Process Work?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Full Reinvestigation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Withholding Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Annual Reporting Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Moving Forward. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Role of the True Crime Community. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Chapter 2 — Starting a Cold Case Squad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Defining the Mission of the Cold Case Squad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Does the Department Need a Cold Case Squad?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
How Many Cases are There?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Obstacles To Creating a Cold Case Squad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Grant Writing Tips for Police Departments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
The Use of Retired Law Enforcement, Civilians, and Volunteers. . . . 18
Cold Case Symposiums. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
‘Cold Case Institutes’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Using Personnel with Medical Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Evaluating the Current Cold Case Squad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Cold Case CompStat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Chapter 3 — Choosing the Right Personnel for the
Cold Case Squad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Create an Application and Interview Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Choosing a Supervisor for the Cold Case Squad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Traits and Skills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Skill Sets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
A Cold Case Squad Personnel Wish List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
The Final Thoughts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Chapter 4 — Why Do Cases Go Cold?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Factors That Can Cause a Case to go Cold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Chapter 5 — Choosing a Cold Case to Investigate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
How Many Cases Should a Cold Case Investigator Carry?. . . . . . . . 58
Starting the Cold Case File Quest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
How to Evaluate a Cold Case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Solvability Factors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Other Types of Evidence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
New Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Out of the Blue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
A Connected Case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
A Case with Federal Assistance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
New Eyewitness or Reluctant One Surfaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
A Named Suspect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Chapter 6 — Organizing and Reviewing the Cold Case File. . . . . . . 75
Handle the Case File with Care. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
The Case File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Breaking Down the Case File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Chapter 7 — Researching a Cold Case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Timelines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
The Weather. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Medical Examiner / Coroner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
What can be Found in the Autopsy Report?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Reporters and Journalists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Social Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Cold Case Advocates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Chapter 8 — The Photographic Crime Scene Walkthrough. . . . . . . . 99
The Reinvestigation Mindset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Listen to the 911 Call(s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
The Photographic Crime Scene Walkthrough. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Questions That Need to be Answered. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
The Postmortem Interval with Crime Scene Photographs. . . . . . . . 107
Crime Scene Sketches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Video Surveillance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Visiting the Crime Scene. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Crime Scene Reconstruction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Developing a Hypothesis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Testing the Hypothesis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Chapter 9 — The Reinvestigation of the Case –
Reading the Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Cold Cases are Different. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
How Many Reports Should You Read?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
The Main Investigative Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
The Interviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
The Law Enforcement Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
EMS / EMTs / Fire Department. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Last Responders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Witnesses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Canvass Interviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Internet Records, Phone Records, and Video Surveillance. . . . . . . 123
Eyewitness Identification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Evidence Test Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Does Your Hypothesis Still Hold Water?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Reaching out to the Original Investigator(s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Chapter 10 — The Reinvestigation of the Case –
Reinterviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Canvass. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Conducting the Interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Rapport Building. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Types Of Questions to Ask. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Questions You Shouldn’t Use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Active Listening. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Preventing Interview Contamination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Note Taking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
The Assessment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Chapter 11 — Social Media for Cold Case
Investigations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Social Media Benefits in Practice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Starting a Social Media Presence for the Cold Case Squad. . . . . . . 141
Which Platforms Should You Consider?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
When and How to Use Social Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
What About Privacy Issues?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Subpoenas / Warrant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Chapter 12 — Report Writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Legal Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Brady Material. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Writing the Investigative Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Tell Me a Story. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Qualities of a Good Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Separate Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
The Final Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Supervisors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Chapter 13 — Cold Case Missing Persons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Why do People go Missing?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Who was Billy Smolinski Jr.?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
The Help Find the Missing Act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
National Missing Persons Day. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
National Missing and Unidentified Human Remains
System (NamUs). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Reexamining a Cold Missing Persons Case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Redo the Victimology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Cold Case Digs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
The Use of Forensic Artists to Help Identify the Unidentified. . . . . 168
New Forensic Technologies to Help Identify the Unidentified. . . . . 169
No Body Cases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
International Missing Persons Cases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Chapter 14 — The Search for a Known Suspect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
What are some of the things you should be
thinking about?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
The NCIC Offline Search. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Fusion Centers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Disseminate Suspect’s Photograph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Crime Stoppers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
International Wanted Persons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Chapter 15 — Interrogation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
A Quick History on the Miranda Case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Read the Miranda Warnings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Admission v. Confession. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Can the Police Lie?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Interrogations and Cold Cases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Video Recording of Cold Case Interrogations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Chapter 16 — Cold Case Sexual Assaults. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Cold Case Sexual Assaults. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
John Doe Warrants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kits (Rape Kits). . . . . . . . . . . . 193
The Rape Kit Backlog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Legislation to Track Rape Kits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Grants to Help Alleviate the Rape Kit Backlog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Referrals for Victims of Sexual Assault. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Joyful Heart Foundation’s Six Pillars of Reform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Chapter 17 — Victims’ Family Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
For the Family. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
What is a Cold Case Advocate?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Formal and Informal Processes in Police Departments. . . . . . . . . . 201
Making a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request. . . . . . . . . . 202
Is a Monumental Shift in FOIA Requests on Cold Cases
Coming?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Project: Cold Case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Uncovered.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Other Cold Case Websites and Organizations of Interest. . . . . . . . 207
Chapter 18 — Cold Case Prosecution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Horizonal v. Vertical Prosecution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
It’s the DA’s Decision, Not Yours to Move Forward. . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
What is Probable Cause +1 then?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Admissibility of Expert Testimony. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221